The U.S. Division of Justice (DoJ) has charged a 39-year-old U.Okay. nationwide for perpetrating a hack-to-trade fraud scheme that netted him practically $3.75 million in unlawful earnings.
Robert Westbrook of London was arrested final week and is anticipated to be extradited to the U.S. to face expenses associated to securities fraud, wire fraud, and 5 counts of laptop fraud.
Based on the courtroom paperwork, Westbrook is believed to have executed a fraudulent scheme between January 2019 and Could 2020 that allowed him to generate thousands and thousands in earnings by gaining unauthorized entry to Microsoft 365 accounts belonging to company executives.
“On at least five occasions, Westbrook gained unauthorized access to Office 365 email accounts belonging to corporate executives employed by certain U.S.-based companies to obtain non-public information, including information about impending earnings announcements,” the DoJ mentioned.
The accused then used that data to buy securities and made earnings by promoting them in brief order as soon as the small print turned public information.
“On several occasions, Westbrook implemented auto-forwarding rules designed to automatically forward content from the corporate executives’ compromised email accounts to email accounts controlled by Westbrook,” the DoJ famous.
The Securities and Alternate Fee (SEC) mentioned Westbrook deceptively obtained the delicate data from 5 public firms upfront of at the very least 14 earnings bulletins by resetting the passwords of these executives’ accounts.
“Even though Westbrook took multiple steps to conceal his identity – including using anonymous email accounts, VPN services, and utilizing bitcoin – the Commission’s advanced data analytics, crypto asset tracing, and technology can uncover fraud even in cases involving sophisticated international hacking,” Jorge G. Tenreiro, appearing chief of the SEC’s Crypto Belongings and Cyber Unit, mentioned.
Westbrook’s securities fraud depend carries a most potential penalty of as much as 20 years in jail and a advantageous of $5 million. The wire fraud expenses may rack up one other most sentence of as much as 20 years in jail and a advantageous of both $250,000, or twice the achieve or loss from the offense, whichever is biggest.
Every depend of laptop fraud has a most potential penalty of 5 years in jail and a most advantageous of both $250,000 or twice the achieve or loss from the offense, whichever is biggest.
